Uk Archives - Big Picture Film Club

It’s not been a bad year for the UK box office. With the total takings of 2019s top 10 highest grosser’s (at time of writing) being approximately £388,967,274 (according to Box Office Mojo and google money converter).

So today we are going to look at how the top 10 currently stands. Which movies have earned the most in the UK so far? And what have critics and audiences had to say about them?

10. The Secret Life of Pets 2 – £19,570,258

The latest offering from Illumination managed to rake in the box office, despite a rather lukewarm reception.

Audience Thoughts: 90% – Rotten tomatoes / 6.6 – IMDb

Critics Thoughts: “A sequel that feels less necessary than willed into being, but that doesn’t mean it’s not pleasantly entertaining.”

Illuminations latest offering kicks off the UK’s highest grossers

9. How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World – £21,219,615

While the concluding How to Train Your Dragon movie wasn’t as successful as its predecessors at the box office, it continued to impress both audiences and critics in equal measure.

Audience Thoughts: 87% – Rotten Tomatoes / 7.6 – IMDb

Critics Thoughts: “Who would have thought that DreamWorks’ “How To Train Your Dragon” would end up as one of the best film trilogies out there?”

The How to Train Your Dragon series performs one last hoorah

8. Rocketman – £23,572,360

The Elton John biopic followed in the footsteps of last year’s Bohemian Rhapsody and became a smash hit across the UK.

Audience Thoughts: 88% – Rotten Tomatoes / 7.6 – IMDb

Critics Thoughts: “Rocketman is an honest, heartfelt tribute to Elton John’s music and his public image.”

Rocketman managed to blast off at the UK box office

7. Dumbo (2019) – £26,964,177

The first of Disney’s live-action remakes this year, left an odd taste in the mouths of cinemagoers. As despite its high takings, no one really seemed overly enthused about it.

Audience Thoughts: 51% – Rotten Tomatoes / 6.4 – IMDb

Critics Thoughts: “The problem with this latest entry in Disney’s ever-expanding range of recycled classics isn’t that it hews too close to the studio’s original animated masterpiece, but that its many departures only muddle the original’s nursery-rhyme simplicity”

Dumbo (2019) flies into the number 7 place

6. Spider-Man: Far From Home – £31,524,501

The most recent film in the ever dominant MCU, like many of its predecessors, deftly managed to please both audiences and critics.

Audience thoughts: 95% – Rotten Tomatoes / 7.9 – IMDb

Critics Thoughts: “It’s not quite the home-run of Homecoming, but Far From Home isn’t far from matching it, with heaps of humour, energetic action, and the answers Endgame left you craving.”

Number 6 in the UK’s highest-grossing films of 2019? Spider-Man approves

5. Aladdin (2019) – £37,496,448

Back with Disney’s live-action remakes, unlike Dumbo, Aladdin did manage to please audiences, critics however were very mixed.

Audience Thoughts: 94% – Rotten Tomatoes / 7.4 – IMDb

Critics Thoughts: “Another lavish and largely entertaining Disney re-do, with strong turns from Massoud and Scott. But…Smith’s genie performance feels disappointingly constrained — both by overdependence on the original and some ghastly CGI.”

Aladdin (2019) soared on it’s magic carpet to the number 5 spot in the UK’s top 10

4. The Lion King (2019) – £37,816,339

The latest Disney remake has, in only 2 weeks, already proven to be Disney’s most successful solo developed project in the UK. It also managed to capture the love of the general public. But critics have been less kind to this effort:

Audience Thoughts: 88% – Rotten Tomatoes / 7.2 – IMDb

Critics Thoughts: “Unfolding like the world’s longest and least convincing deepfake, the new “Lion King” fatally misunderstands what once made Disney special.”

The photo-realisitc Lion King (2019) is the UK’s 4th highest grossing film

3. Captain Marvel – £42,632,688

Despite its divided reception by both audiences and critics, Captain Marvel continued to prove the power of the MCU’s marquee value.

Audience Thoughts: 55% – Rotten Tomatoes / 7.0 – IMDb

Critics Thoughts: “Captain Marvel is … a solid enough movie, but it suffers from an overbearing need for its agenda to be pushed – had it been handled with a little more care, it could have been fantastic.”

Captain Marvel storms into 3rd at the UK Box Office

2. Toy Story 4 – £53,611,537

9 years after Toy Story 3, Toy Story 4 finally made it to cinemas. It continued the high standards set by the original Toy Story films, opening to almost unanimous praise across the board.

Audience Thoughts: 94% on Rotten Tomatoes / 8.2 – IMDb (#170 on IMDb’s top 250 films)

Critics Thoughts: “This franchise has demonstrated an impressive ability to beat the odds and reinvent itself…It’s a toy store of ideas, with new wonders in every aisle.”

The Toy Story gang still managed to bring in the numbers despite a 9-year absence

1. Avengers: Endgame – £94,559,351

Lastly, we come to the highest-grossing movie of the year (and of all time). After over a decade of build-up, the MCU finally culminated with a fond farewell that pleased almost everyone.

Audience Thoughts: 91% – Rotten Tomatoes / 8.7 – IMDb (#24 0n IMDb’s top 250 films).

Critics Thoughts: “Avengers: Endgame is all that you hope it’ll be and a bag of chips. The Russo brothers hit all the right notes from start to finish, and the ending in particular is thoroughly satisfying.”

Avengers: Endgame has beat down all the competition to become the highest-grossing film of the year (and of all time)

So ends the UK box office top 10 of the year so far. And with big releases like IT: Chapter 2 and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker coming up, this year’s top 10 may even beat last year’s top 10 gross (approximately £523,006,040). We’ll just have to wait and see.

Also Read: What’s Next For Disney?

Big Picture Film Club held a screening of psychological-thriller, Mile End [@MileEndMovie], earlier this month. We had a brief Q&A with the film’s writer, director and creative architect, Graham Higgins.

Big Picture Film Club: What inspired you to create MILE END?

Graham Higgins: The idea for MILE END was inspired by real events when a jogger tried to high five me in the street and it started me thinking, what could have happened if I’d got to know him? I go running by the river in Limehouse, in east London where I live. I find that running is very liberating. It frees up your subconscious. So as I was running, this story which is very psychological would just come to me, and I would rush home and write it all down.

BPFC: Not to give too much of the plot away, but MILE END plays on the duality of the main character – what inspired this direction?

Graham: That’s the main question at the heart of the film – the enigma about the parallel lives of the two main characters. These two unemployed guys meet by chance while they’re out running and they become running mates. And they develop a bond, which is quite strange.

Many of us will have experienced that uncanny feeling when someone says something, the same thing we have just been thinking ourselves, and it’s curious how people can have the same thoughts at the same time. You could say it’s coincidence, but perhaps there is something else going on – something spiritual or an affinity between us that we don’t really understand.

During the story, three people are killed in strange circumstances and the film poses the enigma: what happened to them? The answer lies somewhere in the psychology of these two guys, and it’s up to the audience to decide what has happened.

BPFC: What aspect of the film do you think would surprise anyone who sees it?

Graham: MILE END is unique in that it’s my very personal take on what I call the ‘stranger danger’ thriller. People will be familiar with the genre from movies like ‘Single White Female’ where an innocent person meets a dubious stranger. But I’ve given it my own slant, which is to create a story that is deliberately ambiguous. People do find it refreshing that the film keeps them guessing and enjoy trying to figure out what has happened.

It’s also a very different take on the East End of London. There are no gangsters. It’s about an office worker who lives on the fringes of London’s banking zones, the City and Canary Wharf. He loses his job in the recession and goes running while he’s trying to get back into work.

The cinematography by Anna Valdez Hanks really captures the unique beauty of that washed out London light by the Thames, and also the ominous presence of the banking district of Canary Wharf which looms over east London. The music by Ed Scolding is very clever, you don’t feel like you’ve heard it before. One of the reviewers described the film as “beautiful and unsettling” and audiences have found it surprising that a film can have both those qualities at the same time.

BPFC: What are your plans for MILE END moving forward?

Graham: We’re currently submitting to international festivals, talking to distributors. The film premiered at Raindance where it was nominated for Best UK Feature, which was a great experience, so we’re looking forward to more festival screenings. We plan to have a limited theatrical release in independent cinemas next year and then digital release after that.

BPFC: Do you have any projects in mind for the future?

Graham: I have two other feature scripts I’ve written, set in east London. So the three films will be a loose ‘Limehouse’ trilogy. I’d like to make those over the next few years. I also have a drawer full of ideas for other features and a few books I’d like to adapt.

BPFC: How was the feedback from the film?

Graham: Amazing. Reviews have been really positive, picking up on the financial crisis theme, and also saying how “absorbing” and “compelling” the film is. The central performances by Alex Humes and Mark Arnold have rightly had a lot of praise.

One audience member described the film as “full of charm and darkness”, and I think audiences have really found it intriguing and gripping. It’s what I would call a European-style psychological thriller, and people have definitely come out feeling very affected by it. The suspense really ramps up as you go deeper into the story and you do notice audiences going very quiet as they’re drawn in.

Big Picture Film Club would like to thank Graham Higgins [@GrahamHi], and the entire cast and crew of Mile End. Look out for future screenings!

Follow Mile End on Twitter: @mileendmovie

Follow Big Picture Film Club on Twitter: @BigPicFilmClub